Sports car fans can skip this, it's for the newbies

Friday

Jun 20, 2014 at 2:04 PMJun 20, 2014 at 2:04 PM

Hey sports car fans, there’s really no need for you to read this. Go back to Snapchatting or Candy Crushing or whatever it is you do, but today I really need to address people who aren’t into endurance racing.

So, you can go now. Thanks.

Ok, now that the know-it-alls aren’t here, we can have an open dialogue. Sports car racing is pretty awesome, and it always has been despite what you may have heard. I’m guessing you’re either only into NASCAR or not enthusiastic about auto racing at all, but have heard a lot about next weekend’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen in the pages of The Leader, online or have seen the banners and billboards around the area.

Basically, it’s just as the title would lead one to believe – a six-hour car race. It features six distinct kinds of race cars split into four classes with virtually every major car manufacturer in the world represented. Except Toyota. I don’t know what their deal is, but I digress. Each car will have at least two drivers because six hours on an open road can be exhausting, let alone driving cars on the edge of control at 180 mph in a straight line and as fast as 90 mph through some of the corners. The first car in each class to cross the finish line after 360 minutes are the winners.

I know what you’re thinking, “Wait a minute, for the last 20 years there have been, like, a bunch of these races with different cars and drivers. What’s the big deal about a six-hour race this year?”

Well, it’s only been 16 years and now all those cars and drivers are together again under the IMSA banner. Some of you older readers might remember that name from the early 1980s when Watkins Glen International emerged from bankruptcy. IMSA was the first headlining series to race at The Glen, and if not for the success of those races, no way does our little road course in Schuyler County ever get NASCAR up here. If IMSA failed, NASCAR doesn’t come and if NASCAR didn’t come or was a flop, the track likely would have been sold for real estate decades ago.

The thought of this makes local hotel and restaurant owners a bit faint.

Anyway, this is the first time everyone has been racing for the same championship since 1997. How did this happen?

In auto racing, the only sanctioning body in North America to exhibit a modicum of stability is NASCAR, which explains its success and popularity. NASCAR is the model of strength and security, not having to fight with a rival series since the early 1970s. Ownership has been limited to one family since 1948 and, despite minor gripes internally, has endured where others have faltered. Open-wheel racing has been sanctioned by more organizations than you can name in 10 seconds, and sports car racing has been yanked in 17 different directions since the first people said, “I can get my car to Point B faster than you can.”

Started in 1969 to corral all the different series and divisions, IMSA became the major form of sports car racing in the 1970s and by the time the 1990s rolled around, its fantastical cars wowed crowds across the country. However, even at its peak IMSA was unable to adopt a “benevolent dictatorship” model that NASCAR perfected due to the influence of European car makers and sanctioning bodies. Sports car are expensive to produce, and hence rare, so it’s important that car owners can take their gear anywhere they want to race, lest they be forced to choose. Given the rarity of the cars, no one wants to make them pick a side.

Enter: Andy Evans.

Having built a fortune by telling Bill Gates where to invest his vast wealth, Evans sank his money into racing – owning cars, driving cars and occasionally taking Scrooge McDuck baths in his vault. I don’t know for sure, I’m just guessing that’s what rich guys do. Evans eventually bought IMSA and for reasons only known to only him and the dark lords of the underworld, he changed the name to Professional Sports Car Racing. This forced the IMSA loyalists to create a rival series under the Sports Car Club of America umbrella, but that didn’t work out so well. A year later, the same IMSA throwbacks formed an independent entity called Grand-Am.

Evans’ reign wasn’t long, in two years he sold PSCR to Dr. Don Panoz – another rich guy, but one who earned his money by making an actual product. Panoz desired a strong American link to the grand daddy of all sports car races, the 24 of Le Mans. If you don’t know, Le Mans is second only to the Indianapolis 500 in terms of history and prestige, but also wields slightly more than significant influence on sports car racing.

Panoz started the American Le Mans Series out of the burnt husk of PSCR, while Grand-Am carried on with a focus on privateer teams. This clash of ideals prevented the two sides from unifying – it’s kind of like asking Republicans and Democrats to agree on public policy. Wait, that’s what we pay them to do? For $174,000 per year? Each? What a scam, does the president know about this?

I’ve digressed again.

The two sides went about their business for more than a decade, each claiming small victories, until the financial crash of 2008. To the best of my knowledge, Evans did not cause that – or at least wasn’t the principle reason. Suddenly, car counts in both series shrunk dramatically. To leverage itself, Grand-Am was absorbed by NASCAR and in 2012, an offer to purchase Panoz’s ALMS was accepted.

Good lord, this has been dragged out too long. Stephen Stucker* could have summed this up in a Vine video.

So everyone is back together, unified by IMSA. It’s not perfect, the people in charge basically had to blend two opposing philosophies into something singular, identifiable and fair – kind of like if Christianity and Judaism created a new religion, someone would get bent out of shape even if it’s in the interest of the greater good. This is, however, a start. Remembering the last time IMSA started something at The Glen, things worked out pretty well and that is worth getting excited about.

* — You’ll probably need to look that up on IMDB.com.

Chris Gill, who covers auto racing for The Leader, can be reached at cmgill@the-leader.com or follow him on Twitter @TheLeaderGill.

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